Chen Du & Xisheng Chen translate Yan An

The lightning catcher

1. A Bare-Handed Lightning Catcher

Many friends are destined to leaveMany things are doomed to vanishJust like we are bound to see dust and cindersJust like cloud shadows and broad-leaved epiphyllums

Just like a bare-handed lightning catcherJust like the grey bristles and manes of wolvesRunning hither and thither on a moorlandRunning hither and thither on the mountain ridgesIn the bleak twilight or broad daylightJust like some kind of hallucination that has flashed byJust like stones, descending with a waterfallThat glitter-glister in the splashing white light of the fallsThe bare-handed lightning catcherMany trees have been knocked down by himMany mountains have been overthrown by himMany rivers have been held in his hands like handlesAs if he were holding whips

The man who lashes us with a whipWho thrashes trees, hills, and dalesWho slashes top-heavy hairy savagesWho catches lightning with bare handsIs the man who is waiting for usTo catch our and the world’s Ghost shades and silhouettesAs if we were hunting bears in shadows

The man digging a well at the seashoreLooks wan and gloomyHe is familiar with the headland, dull seabirds, and even sea ghostsSometimes he lives with them in the mountainsSometimes he lives alone on a reefSometimes he lives, when the fishing season is over,On a tottering mast whence he can overlook the entire ocean

The ocean is like a sapphire blue wastelandSurrounded by white spindrifts and mournful warbles of white seabirdsAll the white birds are still soaring above the oceanAll the black birds are winging in the skyThe man digging a well at the seashoreIs like a gigantic spider using a fishing netTo suspend himself from the teetering mast

Like a seabird whose wings have been broken by the ocean many times The man digging a well at the seashoreKnows very well secrets of the oceanHis small well is so exquisiteSo crystal clear that all the people coming to watch the ocean want to drink from itA fish conceiving for long but unable to spawn wants to drink from itEven the entire ocean dying of thirstWants to drink from it

Yan An’s poems are highly experimental, unconventional, and unique according to the standards and traditions of Chinese culture, considering their aesthetic value, contents, philosophical denotations and meanings. As a pioneer in modern westernized Chinese poetry, Yan An has completely transformed Chinese readers’ concepts and understanding of poetry through his unique views about the universe, life, society and people. His way of thinking is unusual and unconventional. His poems do not contain any of the Chinese elements traditionally and commonly depicted by other Chinese poets; instead, they can transcend the boundaries between nations and cultures, reaching for a wider audience across the world. In each of his poems, behind his boundless imagination, there lies a story and Yan An’s sentiments and understandings of life, people, society, and the universe.

His
language is intense and abstract. Just like his other poems, these two poems
are rich in literary devices, such as, similes, metaphors, personifications and
parallelisms. These literary devices have well served their purpose in the
Chinese versions. Nevertheless, in their English versions, some transcreation
techniques have to be exploited to retain the same or similar effect. For
example, in translating the second to the fourth lines of the third stanza of
the poem “A Bare-Handed Lightning Catcher,” the
phrase “The man” was omitted at the beginning of these three lines to make the
translation more succinct, clear and rhythmic and to avoid repetition and
drabness.

There were also other, different sorts of transcreation in the process. A new word was coined through reduplication: “glitter-glister,” in the eighth line of the second stanza. In the second line of the second stanza, we conjoined two similar linguistic elements, in this case: words in order to enrich the content of the translation: “bristles and manes.” To avoid repetition and boredom, some synonyms are used to translate the same Chinese words. For example, in the first three lines of the third stanza of the poem “A Bare-Handed Lightning Catcher”, the word “抽打” is translated into three synonyms: “lashes,” “thrashes,” and “slashes.”

In addition, we added some extra words or meaning to a few words in the target text or translated a simple word into a more complicated concept. It helps the lines of the same stanza have similar lengths. For example, the word “奔走” (literally: “running”) is translated to “Running hither and thither”. As a result, the line that contains this word has a similar length to the other lines in the same stanza and the target text is more vivid than a literal translation. Because the Chinese language emphasizes meaning (parataxis) while the English language emphasizes structure (hypotaxis), by adding extra meaning to some part of the target text, the transcreated text has also integrated with the source language and culture to some extent.

All in all, we have attempted to bring something new and foreign into English to enrich it, by helping English poets and readers unleash their creativity, imagination, inspiration, and by bridging or integrating American and Chinese way of thinking and culture. Also, we have endeavored to create some novel transcreation techniques to help with any future translation of Yan An’s poems.

Yan An is a most famous poet in contemporary China, author of fourteen poetry books including his most famous poetry book Arranging Boulders which has won him The Sixth Lu Xun Literary Prize, one of China’s top four literary prizes. He is the winner of various national awards and prizes. He is also the Vice President of Shaanxi Writers Association, the head and Executive Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal Yan River, one of the oldest and most famous literary journals in Northwestern China. He is a national committee member of the Poetry Committee of China Writers Association.

Chen Du has a Master’s Degree in Biophysics from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Master’s Degree in Radio Physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She revised more than eight chapters of the Chinese translation of the biography of Helen Snow, Helen Foster Snow – An American Woman in Revolutionary China. In the United States, her translations have appeared in Columbia Journal, Lunch Ticket, The Bare Life Review, and River River. She is also the author of the book Successful Personal Statements. Find her online at ofsea.com.

Xisheng Chen is a translator and ESL linguist and educator. His educational background includes: BA and MA from Fudan University, Shanghai, China, and a Mandarin Healthcare Interpreter Certificate from City College of San Francisco, California. His working history includes: translator for Shanghai TV Station, lecturer at Jiangnan University in Wuxi, China, adjunct professor at Departments of English and Social Sciences, Trine University, Angola, Indiana, and high-tech translator for Futurewei Technologies, Inc. in Santa Clara, California.